


we stopped our hearts; we sold our souls

by galveres



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes-centric, Captain America: The First Avenger, Character Death, Heavy Angst, Hurt, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt No Comfort, Loss of Limbs, M/M, Stars, Vomiting, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 08:09:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20617769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galveres/pseuds/galveres
Summary: Bucky fell from the train, but made his last attempt to go back to his Stevie. It was so hard, and he didn't think he could do it. He wanted to go to the stars already. But couldn't just leave Stevie alone; he didn't even say goodbye.





	we stopped our hearts; we sold our souls

He was floating. Bucky was just a ghost, nothing more. He was pinned to his body, he knew it; he knew he was lying somewhere on the ground, freezing in snow, probably in great pain; but he was floating. Somewhere above, dancing with the brightest stars, dreaming to be one of them. They seemed so careless, just being there, living forever, guiding all the lost souls back home. It must’ve felt so wonderful not to be a follower, to be a guide, to show the way. But he had always been a follower and he was one hundred percent sure that couldn’t be changed anymore. So he just let himself be led by the universe’s own fireflies, going somewhere far, far away. He thought that it was a really lonely way to live, but maybe that was what he needed; if just for a moment. For a second, somewhere up in the sky, somewhere away from the war, away from the deaths he had to witness; away from the torture and threats. He was just there, trapped in the moment.

The sounds made by the sky were reminding him of the sea. He heard the soft hum the waves would make every time he sat with Stevie on the sand whenever they had a chance, when the sun was shining so bright it’d blind them, and they’d laugh at it, knowing that no sun would ever defeat them.

Bucky could think he was somewhere, standing on the shore, gazing into the horizon, when the sun had already fallen asleep; but he wasn’t staring at it. He _ was _the horizon. He was a part of the galaxy, and the galaxy was a part of him. And so he was floating through the dark sky, and maybe he could be a shooting star; they weren’t like the other ones, they were wandering, running so fast that the human eye could barely register them. Maybe Bucky was falling from the sky.

He already fell. He remembered, when Stevie was trying to hold his hand, something they hadn’t done in so long; that would be the last time he’d ever done it. But they were so, so far from each other. Bucky was already changing into the falling star, and Stevie was still the moon, hanging in one place, still laughing at the sun while Bucky was getting farther (and further) away.

Funny how fate works.

Even if he was that damn shooting star, could a star ever fall in love with the moon? Because Bucky had been sure for years. They were friends, but they were also lovers. Somewhere deep, deep in their hearts, they had known that for so long.

They were on the same sky, shining at the same time, reflecting the exact same light, but Bucky was falling away from his moon. Straight onto the ground, while Stevie watched, and watched, and couldn’t do anything, even if he wanted to.

And he was on the ground again, not wandering anymore. And it was cold, no more melody of the sea, no more bright lights, only him, the snow, blood and trees. The mountains so high that now only they had a proper connection with the sky. Which was dark, darker than when he was above.

He missed being the horizon.

He couldn’t feel most of his body. Was it even his at that point? When he had already gifted his soul to the night sky?

He blinked once, twice, and he felt as if his eyes were frozen. Maybe they were. Maybe he had shifted and was the snow now.

That wouldn’t be too bad. The snow was a wanderer, too. And Bucky didn’t mind it. He’d always wanted to see the world, all the secrets it held. Humans were not allowed to know all of those mysteries, but if he was the snow… He would know them all. Was he worthy of them? Probably not, but he wanted to know the earth, as the earth already knew all of him.

But he also… He wanted to be warm again. He wanted to go back to Stevie. If he was the snow, then what would it make Stevie? Maybe the sun. Because Bucky really wanted to melt in his arms.

He sighed, and that was the proof that he was alive. His body was coming back to him, which was, well. It was a little disappointing. He was neither the horizon, nor the snow. He was just Bucky, only Bucky once again. Living and breathing and ordinary. Alone, somewhere below the mountains, below the shiny white snow, almost buried in it.

He wouldn’t mind if it was his coffin. But he had to get up, because once, years ago, he made a promise. The one that he had to keep, the one more important than the whole universe. The one that pushed Bucky to stay human after all he’d done.

_ I’m with you till the end of the line, pal. _

He tried to get up, he really did. He had a plan; he just needed to crawl to the nearest tree and then use it to support himself. It shouldn’t be much work, he was in a forest, after all.

In a forest, in the middle of the night, very human and very hurting. Very much longing for the sky he no longer could be a part of.

He wasn’t looking at anything; couldn’t focus his eyesight. So he let his mind flow, reminding him all the times Stevie’s smile made his days brighter. Maybe he really was the sun. But also the moon. Maybe it was Stevie’s duality, he could be all at once, all that Bucky dreamed of, all that Bucky couldn’t be, but could still love and cherish with all the fire still flickering inside his heart, so cold now.

Getting up wasn’t easy. His fingers were purple, almost livid. It reminded him of the times when his little Stevie would get sick. His lips were always so sickly blue, it made Bucky cry his eyes out so many times, the amount of nightmares of dying Stevie he’d had, it haunted him every damn day, but then Stevie got big and didn’t need Bucky all that much anymore, it seemed. But Bucky knew that he did. Maybe his lips weren’t blue anymore, but his heart, his heart was turning dark. And so Bucky, every day, he would make sure that the happy Brooklyn boy never faded, through the roughest times.

The fingers of his other hand, well,

they weren’t there to begin with.

And Bucky fell to his knees again, because now he knew where the blood around him came from; it was him that made the snow filthy. His own blood stained the world covered in white, and it made him throw up, he ruined it, he ruined all of it and there was no going back.

Now that he could feel some of his body, he realized that he still felt the arm, being right where it was supposed to be; so why was there only free space? Why had he been lied to like that, in the most sickly way?

How could he get to Steve, looking like that? A part of him missing?

He had to, he had to, he needed to fix it.

Bucky collapsed completely once again, right on the hole where his left arm was, and he screamed, and it was so loud that it hurt his own ears. The echo was spreading through the mountains, and he wanted to cry. Maybe he did. No one could hear him, that’s for sure. And no one would come for him, because his soul was already back to the stars.

Maybe it was his tears that made his face so wet as he passed out.

* * *

He was more alert this time around. He didn’t dream of the stars anymore. The sky wasn’t his, he wasn’t the horizon, and he had come to terms with that, the only thing that truly was his was Stevie, all along. He was going to get to his Stevie, without his arm, maybe bleeding out, but with heart as stubborn as Stevie’s, just like he was taught, taught by that very same person. He always watched, observed his friend, and Bucky’s small heart would grow, and get warmer and warmer, all because of Stevie.

He was going back, one step after another. He didn’t exactly know where he was going, only knowing that he wanted to get home.

But that forest was so big. And so scary, and it took him hours to see the light, see the sun that should’ve come out hours ago. He had been lying passed out for at least a few hours; hopefully not for days, before he woke up again, with one clear goal in his mind, a thousand times more determined.

It was hard to stay focused; maybe because of the icy shade of the trees, telling him to give up, because from now on he would only feel cold, maybe because of the fact that he didn’t have much blood left.

But he kept going, for hours, for days, hopefully not for weeks; hoped for his intuition to get him to Stevie, against all odds.

It only took a moment for him to stop feeling his body again, but maybe that was better; at least he didn’t feel pain anymore, every time he fell down in his trying. He wasn’t floating anywhere, not this time; he let his body do whatever it wanted for as long as it pushed through the never ending journey he’d had to participate in against his own will.

And one night, when he was about to give up, when he was seconds from collapsing for the last time, when even Stevie couldn’t keep him going anymore, he saw a flame.

He was nearing the sun. Maybe this time they were going to finally collide. The snow, the sun, the star, the moon, the names didn’t matter. He wanted them to collide, to shatter at the impact, but shatter together. To melt, to be melted.

“Stevie?” he asked, his voice not used for days, and he was scared that it was too quiet, he worried that no one would see him, after all the effort he’d put himself through, that he was going to die after all, did he make it on time?

His body was giving up, and with every step he was closer to the ground, but he could _ swear _that he saw his Stevie somewhere out there, sitting next to the fire, maybe being the fire, maybe both at once, and he needed to get there.

“Please, Stevie.” And just like that, his mouth stopped working, and he was seconds from crumbling down, and he was too late, it was all for nothing because in the end, it was his voice that failed, and Stevie didn’t hear him, and Bucky was going to die in the cold, not in the warm, not melting in Stevie’s arms, and that was the most devastating thing, and he didn’t want it to go like that. Not now, when he went such a long way.

He heard the noises. There were so many voices around him when he collapsed. Maybe it was all these people he killed at war, haunting him, trying to take his soul away; but no, his soul was with the stars, no one could pry it from him anymore, because it wasn’t there in the first place. So who did they belong to? Who tried to disturb the supposed peace of his final moments? Was he really that important that someone was making noise around him?  
He was lying on the ground. There wasn’t as much snow as in the deeper parts of that godforsaken forest, so it wouldn’t be his coffin, after all.

If that was the case, then he hoped for his coffin to be next to Stevie. Hopefully Stevie would never die, but if he did, Bucky hoped they’d be buried together, okay, too much to hope for, but at least at each other’s side.

The stars were waiting for Bucky to become one of them, and as he was leaving, he felt warm arms lifting him up. So it was okay, it was all okay, because he knew it was Stevie. He knew that they reunited, just for those few seconds.

He just hoped it was enough for Stevie to pull through while Bucky looked at him from the night sky, no longer falling down. Just floating, warm, like he was meant to be all that time, in the tranquility of dark.

His heart stopped, but his soul was still there, looking after Stevie. Making sure that the punk was not too stupid,

till the end of the line.

**Author's Note:**

> this might be my best fic so i hope you liked it as much as i liked writing it.


End file.
